Gyroscopic Investing

In a major development polls taken since last week's presidential debate are showing that President Obama and former Governor Romney are now in a statistical tie. One, the Pew Research Poll, shows Romney taking a decisive lead. Prior to the debate Obama lead Romney in virtually all national polls including in the decisive swing states. While I am still not planning to vote for either of these men, as a spectator I have to admit that the election just got interesting.

See recent polling data here...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -1171.html

Reub wrote: Wow! What a shock!

Can you smell a second October surprise?

October Surprise = Romney has been running the country for the past four years.  Blame Romney!

I let the market sort this out. Greedy individuals are pretty good at making predictions when serious money is on the line.

www.intrade.com

Obama's chances spiked at the the 47% comment and then tanked after the debate. But people are still betting as if he has a 64% chance of winning. Pretty interesting to watch

As the stock market tanks, Romney's chances will continue to go up.  But the historical odds continue to be against him.

Reub wrote: In this case Intrade hasn't got a clue. Obama is a failed, flawed President with no agenda except to save Big Bird. Romney would never hire him to run one of his many successful companies, much less consider him presidential. All of the polls are skewed way left because the left wing wants them that way and due to the 2008 landslide. The energy is all with Romney. So is the competence.

I've read that the second October surprise may be a "breakthrough" agreement with Iran that will accomplish nothing on the ground and show Obama's "competence". Iran gets to keep the same patsy President who has allowed them to get so close to having the bomb.

Where possible I try to observe the rule that with politicians one should pay attention to what they do and not what they say.

Based on that rule, Romney's track record would suggest he is more pro-abortion than Obama (rhetoric notwithstanding) that he will appoint left leaning justices, that he will continue the Republican policy of massive expansion of the welfare/warfare state while cutting taxes (mainly for the very wealthy) and financing it through more debt. In foreign affairs we have only his campaign rhetoric to go on since he has never held a national office and so I am inclined to take it with a very large grain of salt. That said, based solely on his statements, especially during the GOP debates when everyone was tripping over each other in a mad effort to be the most hawkish man on the stage, I think it is better than even odds he will have us at war with Iran within the first six months of taking office.

So here is the bottom line. Given that there is no philosophical difference that I can detect between Obama and Romney, and further that Romney seems even more hyperaggressive in his foreign policy than Obama...

If someone put a gun to my head and said vote for one of these two clowns, I would probably hold my nose and pull the lever for Zero.

Reub wrote: In this case Intrade hasn't got a clue. Obama is a failed, flawed President with no agenda except to save Big Bird. Romney would never hire him to run one of his many successful companies, much less consider him presidential. All of the polls are skewed way left because the left wing wants them that way and due to the 2008 landslide. The energy is all with Romney. So is the competence.

I've read that the second October surprise may be a "breakthrough" agreement with Iran that will accomplish nothing on the ground and show Obama's "competence". Iran gets to keep the same patsy President who has allowed them to get so close to having the bomb.

Intrade is a prediction mechanism based off of the incredible combination of greed and free markets. Your comments indicate that you are conservative so it is an interesting contradiction that you don't trust a market equilibrium in a fairly liquid and free market.

i predict romney wins...based on simple fact of his backing by Goldman Sachs (who backed Obama last time)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-0 ... its-wallet

Very interesting article about how the prediction markets are usually more accurate than the polls.  Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again:  it's all about Ohio.  Romney can't win without it and Obama can't lose with it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdes ... l-a-h.html

MangoMan wrote:

Storm wrote: Very interesting article about how the prediction markets are usually more accurate than the polls.  Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again:  it's all about Ohio.  Romney can't win without it and Obama can't lose with it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdes ... l-a-h.html

Think about how ridiculous that statement is. We need to abolish the electoral college. That the determining factor in a presidential election of the most powerful country in the world is the whims of one random state is preposterous.

Agreed. Unfortunately the power brokers in both parties will never let it happen.

MangoMan wrote:

Storm wrote: Very interesting article about how the prediction markets are usually more accurate than the polls.  Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again:  it's all about Ohio.  Romney can't win without it and Obama can't lose with it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdes ... l-a-h.html

Think about how ridiculous that statement is. We need to abolish the electoral college. That the determining factor in a presidential election of the most powerful country in the world is the whims of one random state is preposterous.

At the same time, it causes 80% or so of the country to basically feel like it's watching an election that's happening somewhere else.

Here in Texas I have seen no sign of either candidate for a long time.  Without cable news, you might not even know we were in a Presidential election season.

For all those that think abolishing the Election College would be a great idea, I encourage you to read the negative consequences on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral ... 29#Support

MachineGhost wrote: For all those that think abolishing the Election College would be a great idea, I encourage you to read the negative consequences on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral ... 29#Support

I think those arguments and some others I have read are pretty undemocratic. Deep down is the aversion that party leaders have to losing some of their control over elections. That and the rarely uttered but nonetheless extant suspicion on the part of many advocates of the electoral college that we are too incompetent to actually stage a presidential election based purely on popular vote.

In general I have yet to hear a compelling argument for this system's retention.

This whole country was founded largely on undemocratic principles. That's why we have a federalist republic with (in theory) strong separation of powers instead of a direct democracy. Of course, there's always been a constant debate about just how much democracy we want, but I don't think a particular attribute or idea being undemocratic necessarily invalidates it.

Pointedstick wrote: This whole country was founded largely on undemocratic principles. That's why we have a federalist republic with (in theory) strong separation of powers instead of a direct democracy. Of course, there's always been a constant debate about just how much democracy we want, but I don't think a particular attribute or idea being undemocratic necessarily invalidates it.

You may be inspiring me to change my vote from Calvin Coolidge to...

Ad Orientem wrote: I think those arguments and some others I have read are pretty undemocratic. Deep down is the aversion that party leaders have to losing some of their control over elections. That and the rarely uttered but nonetheless extant suspicion on the part of many advocates of the electoral college that we are too incompetent to actually stage a presidential election based purely on popular vote.

You got a point there, but I don't think it just comes down to whether or not vested interests view voters as stupid.  It might be inconsistent to be for free political speech and for the electoral college.  If I had to guess, I would say the rank-and-file left is against both concepts.

If we could replace the Electoral College system with Direct Democracy (i.e. non-representative), I would be all for it.  But that would require some serious wholesale changes that just converting to a popular vote would not.  A minor tweak to how Presidents are elected is not going to result in any substantial political reform, just change the pandering focus.

The thing about pure democracies is that they are pretty savage, when it comes right down to it.  I think a pure democracy in the US would have:

1. Burned all non-Christians at the stake for practicing witchcraft.
2. Expelled all immigrants that are non-white.
3. Hung all gays and lesbians.

I'm sure there are a number of other things that majority rule would do.  I believe the money quote is "Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner."